Abstract:The awarding of prizes has become embedded in all aspects of our society, including academic conferences. At the same time, the reputation economy, an economy where individual standing is based on the opinions of end users, is growing in strength and validity. We analyzed the way in which the awards discourse has been recontextualized within a small academic conference that is struggling to find legitimacy—the Atlantic Schools of Business Conference. With a focus on language and the different meanings words ho… Show more
“…In their examination of the ASB, Long, Pyper, and Rostis () argued that perceived organizational crisis led, isomorphically, to the formalization of an executive committee in 2005. Then, in 2006, PhD students at Saint Mary's University began writing histories and/or narrative accounts of the ASB; these included Durepos (), MacAulay, Mills, and Durepos (), Murray (), and Hartt () on ANT and the ASB; Campbell () on scholars' curricula vitae (CVs); Murray () on doctoral students' identity construction; Genoe McLaren and Mills () on awards discourse; and Barragan and Mills () on the conference's social construction.…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Amid these accounts of the social construction of ASB over time are many rich narratives about the conference's significance (or lack thereof) to management scholarship. One of the researchers interviewed by Genoe McLaren and Mills () framed the conference this way: Well, it's nice to win an award but it's, like, if I won an award, … if I won an ASB award it really wouldn't mean much to me because, you know, I mean the quality of papers generally at ASB is not terribly high. (p. 313)…”
There is a growing use of actor-network theory (ANT) throughout management and organization studies. While earlier ANT research used ethnography to "follow the actors" in the production of organization/knowledge, more recent studies use archival sources to examine developments over time. We extend the latter approach using qualitative social network analysis (SNA) and apply this to a case study of the Atlantic Schools of Business (ASB). Our contribution is two-fold: first, through an examination of actors in the ASB networking processes over 26 years, we demonstrate how the seemingly stable surface of an organization can hide the precariousness of organizing; second, we reveal the potential fusion of ANT with SNA as a method for dealing with large qualitative datasets over long periods of time.
“…In their examination of the ASB, Long, Pyper, and Rostis () argued that perceived organizational crisis led, isomorphically, to the formalization of an executive committee in 2005. Then, in 2006, PhD students at Saint Mary's University began writing histories and/or narrative accounts of the ASB; these included Durepos (), MacAulay, Mills, and Durepos (), Murray (), and Hartt () on ANT and the ASB; Campbell () on scholars' curricula vitae (CVs); Murray () on doctoral students' identity construction; Genoe McLaren and Mills () on awards discourse; and Barragan and Mills () on the conference's social construction.…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Amid these accounts of the social construction of ASB over time are many rich narratives about the conference's significance (or lack thereof) to management scholarship. One of the researchers interviewed by Genoe McLaren and Mills () framed the conference this way: Well, it's nice to win an award but it's, like, if I won an award, … if I won an ASB award it really wouldn't mean much to me because, you know, I mean the quality of papers generally at ASB is not terribly high. (p. 313)…”
There is a growing use of actor-network theory (ANT) throughout management and organization studies. While earlier ANT research used ethnography to "follow the actors" in the production of organization/knowledge, more recent studies use archival sources to examine developments over time. We extend the latter approach using qualitative social network analysis (SNA) and apply this to a case study of the Atlantic Schools of Business (ASB). Our contribution is two-fold: first, through an examination of actors in the ASB networking processes over 26 years, we demonstrate how the seemingly stable surface of an organization can hide the precariousness of organizing; second, we reveal the potential fusion of ANT with SNA as a method for dealing with large qualitative datasets over long periods of time.
“…Conferences as sites of learning and exchange have long held value for diverse communities such as; political conferences, academic conferences, business conventions, and I would add to this, activist conferences (Adey, 2006;Craggs & Mahony, 2014;Diani, 2000;DiPetro, Bretter, Rompf, & Godlewska, 2008;England & Ward, 2007;McLaren & Mills, 2008;Tanford, Space and Polity 3 Montgomery, & Nelson, 2012). Early work on policy mobilities has noted the importance of faceto-face communication in the form of conferences and policy tourism (González, 2011;McCann, 2008;Ward, 2006).…”
This paper explores the role of conferences as "convergence space": temporary events with lasting material effects. Drawing on three harm reduction conferences occurring between 2011 and 2012, I argue that conferences are both ephemeral fixtures in the landscape of policy activism, and are important nodes through which policy mobilization occurs. Conference spaces provide opportunities for ideas to be shared, produced and advocated. They serve as important sites for the construction of relationships that are required to form and maintain policy advocacy networks and harness political opportunity structures for drug policy reform.
“…Recently, some researchers also started exploring the body of knowledge in conference proceedings (Chan et al 2006;Xu and Chau 2006;McLaren and Mills 2008). As such, conference proceedings are a relatively unexplored area that deserves a closer attention for several reasons.…”
This study examines the identity and development of the management information systems (MIS) field through a scientometric lens applied to three major global, regional and national conferences: International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) and Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Annual Conference (ASAC). It adapts the conference stakeholder approach to the construction of the identity of the MIS discipline and analyzes the proceedings of these three conferences. The findings suggest that the MIS field has been evolving in terms of collaborative research and scholarly output and has been gradually moving towards academic maturity. The leading MIS conference contributors tend to establish loyalty to a limited number of academic meetings. At the same time, relatively low levels of repeat publication in the proceedings of ICIS, PACIS and ASAC were observed. It was suggested that Lotka's and Yule-Simon's bibliometric laws may be applied to measure and predict the degree of conference delegate loyalty.
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